BEQ 4:44
LAT 2:53
NYT 2:41
CS untimed
Lynn Lempel's New York Times crossword
Gotta put my kid to bed now, having been out bowling and tippling a few hours ago when the puzzle came out. So, extra-quick:
Another classic Lempel Monday NYT, perfectly light and smooth, with lively fill and a theme that I didn't even identify right away—phrases or words that end with synonyms. COUGH DROP, NIGHTFALL, KITCHEN SINK, SKINNY DIP, and THINK TANK. If your performance drops, falls, sinks, dips, or straight-up tanks, you need to work on your skills.
Highlights: KING-SIZE and GIRL TALK, WEASELS and icky MENTHOL that's tied to the COUGH DROP. Oh, and SPARES clued as [Bowling scores inferior to strikes]. I had a couple spares and a strike tonight in 1.5 games. In the first game, I stank—all the verbs in this theme? Completely relevant. I bowled a 61. The second game, it was men vs. women and we women wiped the floor with the fellas, sharing a 141 game vs. the husbands' joint 89.
Updated Monday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Beam Me Up, Scotty!"—Janie's review
It seems that like Rick in Casablanca, who never said, "Play it again, Sam," Captain Kirk never really said, "Beam me up, Scotty!" He said things like that, so that's what we remember. And repeat. It may not be completely accurate, but really, who cares?! It takes away from our enjoyment of the reference not one bit. And how does this title play into today's theme? Focus on that first word. Now attach it to the first word of the theme-fill et voila! Full disclosure: I didn't figure this out until a minute or so after I'd finished solving... Here's how it plays out:
• 17A. [Star of "Yes Man"] JIM CARREY → Jim Beam. You know, this stuff. Bottoms up!
• 28A. [Desktop publishing aid] LASER PRINTER → laser beam. Those focused beams are used in measuring the distance to the moon. Never knew that. Did know that laser is an acronym, but never remember that its letters stand for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (and fear I'm not likely to either...).
• 49A. [Statement of financial position] BALANCE SHEET → balance beam. Love how this rather dry fill triggers thoughts of this vividly rigorous gymnastic challenge. Here's Nastia Liukin at the World Championships. Don't try this at home!
• 66A. [Idaho skiing mecca] SUN VALLEY → sun beam. Lovely. And if skiing isn't your thing but the sun is, how about the SEA SHORE [Summer vacation destination]? The thing to remember about the sun's RAYS is that [They're soaked up at the beach], too, and a great way to get yer vitamin D. Wherever you choose to go, remember to use the spf 15...
And there's more strong cluing and fill all around the grid by way of:
• [Something stuffed in November?] isn't TOM TURKEY or YOUR BELLY, but BALLOT BOX. Did you vote last Tuesday?
• [Poem that begins "Once upon a midnight dreary..."] for Poe's "THE RAVEN";
• "negatives" from two very different worlds—[Old fashioned denial] 'TISN'T and ["Fuhgeddaboutit!"] "NAH!"; whose contemporary tone is a nice complement to the phrases
• "ARE [ ___ you out of your mind?"] and ["Take a chill pill!"] for "LOOSEN UP!";
• [Cover story] for ALIBI; which is a fitting complement to
• [Pen pal's place?] for CELL (as in prison cell);
• and, probably my fave, [Monkey that resembles a squirrel], which is MARMOSET. Why do I love this one so much? Because it gives me the chance to trot out the link to "The Marmoset Song." If you click on no other link here, please make it be this one... Silly, but satisfaction guaranteed.
In addition to Sun Valley, sports fans will take note of BART STARR [MVP of the first two Super Bowls], the terrific clue [Arrive home safely?] for SCORE, and [Throwing this in basketball might earn you a foul] for your [ELBOW]. And in addition to Jim Carrey, cinéastes are rewarded with a witty reminder of Madeline KAHN [...who made Boyle boil in "Young Frankenstein], and OTTO Preminger ["Laura" director...], who won an OSCAR [Academy Award] nomination for that picture. The film had five Oscar noms, in fact, but won only one—for Joseph LaShelle in the category of Best Cinematography (Black-and-White).
Barry Silk's Los Angeles Times crossword
The theme entries begin with a trio of related words—MAGIC, TRICK, and ILLUSION—in phrases of varying familiarity:
• 20A. The MAGIC EIGHT BALL is the [Toy that might answer "It is decidedly so"]. 100% familiar! And fun.
• 35A. [Sly inquiry] seems a little off as a clue for TRICK QUESTION. I like the CKQ mash-up in the middle, and the overall Scrabbliness of this puzzle's fill. It's one V short of a pangram, but Barry did use Zs with CRAZY WOOZY ZING (and ZEN ABLAZE TOPAZ).
• 51A. [Cesar Milian dog-training apparatus] is an ILLUSION COLLAR. I have no idea what that is. Am I the only one who's in the dark about this? All I know about Milian is that he's called the Dog Whisperer and that many deplore his training techniques.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Light It Up"
Brendan stretches the grid to 16x15 to accommodate the two longer theme entries. Each theme entry starts with a cigarette brand, which became obvious when KOOL and SALEM joined WINSTON in the grid. MERIT and MORE came later. At long last, a theme that combines the natural team of WINSTON CHURCHILL and KOOL AND THE GANG!
The fill had some Quigleyesque crazy woozy zing to it, like SHIT-TALK, NFL TEAMS, and the colloquial LET'S (["Aw, what the hell"]) and IS IT ME (["Nobody else feels this way?"]).
Least favorite crossing: [Actress Peggy ___] REA meets the [Ship with a single mast], the CATRIG. CATRIG? The hell? I wanted something more like CUTTER or CUTRIG, but a non-LIU actress's last name ending with U wasn't looking probable.
November 08, 2009
Monday, 11/9/09
October 28, 2009
Thursday, 10/29/09
NYT 4:36
LAT 3:01
Tausig untimed
CS untimed
Joe Krozel's New York Times crossword
The theme is either "four ways of spelling the 'air' sound, including 'air' and some longer words" or "four ways of spelling the 'aero' sound, only with two long O sounds and two schwas." Here are the theme entries:
• 18A. ARROWSMITH is the [Sinclair Lewis novel].
• 26A. A [Series of sorties] is an AIR OFFENSIVE. If the theme is words/phrases that start with the "aero" sound, this one doesn't work because OFFENSIVE begins with a schwa.
• 46A. EERO SAARINEN is the St. Louis [Gateway Arch designer]. Crosswordese EERO elevated to both full name and theme entry status.
• 57A. One meaning of [Bomb] is AEROSOL CAN, which also uses a schwa for the first O.
The grid reminds me of Byron Walden's Onion A.V. Club puzzle (blogged yesterday), with a lot of long answers in the fill. The word count here is 70, which is low enough to hit themeless requirements. Alas, 54A has the feel of a 9-letter partial: [Has been around since, with "to"] clues DATES BACK. It wouldn't feel that way if the clue omitted the "with 'to'" bit—and if a thing DATES BACK many years, the verb/adverb feels like more of a unit. I do not care for the plural GASOLINES (2D: [Refinery products]). And I don't know what the point is in clueing TALENTS as 43D: [Biblical money units]; you could skew clever/tricky with something like [They might be hidden] instead of going with a blechy old Biblical term. Speaking of blechy, the CORONERS clue is rather gross: 6D: [Ones examining bodies of evidence?].
Best clue: 10D: [They're out standing in their field] for the HOME TEAM. Runner-up: 21D: [Coin "swallower"] for SOFA. Honorable mention: the [Big do]/[Big ados] pair (AFRO, STIRS).
Best fill: The LOVE SCENE is 32D: [What's barely done in movies]. My favorite LOVE SCENE is less "barely done" than "intercut with smart repartee"—George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight. I kinda like the homely little utilitarian SOUP SPOON, a 20A: table [Setting piece].
Worst answer: 4D: [Like some traffic] is STOP/GO. Who among you call it that? 'Round these parts, it is strictly "stop-and-go traffic."
Ten toughest clues:
• 5A. [Punts, e.g.] are flat-bottomed boats, and so are SCOWS.
• 23A. [Venetian feature] is a LAGOON. Not canals, boats, insane flooding, doges, or the slats of venetian blinds.
• 30A. [Tricolor pooch] clues BEAGLE. White and brown with black splotches, yes?
• 39A. [Set on the court] is an ASSIST in volleyball.
• 49A. [Made a switch in a game] clues CASTLED. Is this about chess?
• 62A. ["Doctor Who" villainess, with "the"] is RANI. No apparent connection to the rani that's a Hindu queen. Doctor Who fans can't account for even 5% of crossword solvers, can they?
• 12D. [Not natural, in a way, after "in"] clues VITRO. Too many "in"s in the clue. Why not use its Latin meaning, "glass"?
• 26D. [Goddess of breezes] is one way to clue AURA. Don't recall learning about this goddess before.
• 31D. [Kind of party] is one of those clues that's not really looking for a noun—it's just skirting the fill-in-the-blank formation. GOING-AWAY fits [___ party], but a GOING-AWAY is not a "kind of party" at all.
• 47D. [It doesn't end in 00] clues an ODD LOT, a stock purchase of something other than the usual round number of shares.
Updated Thursday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "World Series"—Janie's review
Yep. It's that time of the year again. But, nope. This is not a baseball puzzle. Instead of a trip around the diamond, Randy has provided a trip around the solar system, with stops at various orbiting bodies. Most of these are still considered to be planets; one has been demoted. And that's just one of problems I have with the theme/theme fill... The non-theme fill? Some of the very best—so this was a very schizzy solve for me. Let's look at the theme fill:
• 20A. VENUS-MERCURY [Stuff in tennis star Williams's thermometer]. This has to be a hypenate, because VENUS'S MERCURY is too long and VENUS' MERCURY isn't the way the possessive is made for a name ending in "s" (and there's Williams's right there in the clue as a model). Regardless, the phrase feels forced to my ear.
•37A. PLUTO MARS SATURN [Disney dog scratches a Vue?]. There's our dwarf-planet designate. It can't be easy being knocked down a peg from full-planet status. Still, this phrase is kinda cute and works better for me than its preceding theme-mate.
•52A. JUPITER EARTH [Swampland in Florida]. Omma don' know... JUPITER is definitely a town in Florida, but isn't swampland marshy and oozy, and isn't earth considerably more solid? That's how I've always understood the difference. So I find the phrase confusing this time—as well as forced. Ideally (unless there's something very cryptic and witty going on), it shouldn't be a challenge to justify or explain the theme fill. But that's how it feels today. To this solver anyway. What's your take on it?
I was also puzzled by the conspicuous absence of Neptune and Uranus. Seems to me that while it's a clever idea to use the names of the planets as adjectives and verbs and nouns, it's best served as an all-or-nuthin' proposition.
"ZOUNDS!" ["Gadzooks!"], let me get on to this puzzle's real strength—and that would be its colorful and scrabbly non-theme material. That great interjection sits beside [United States Postal Service cartoon character] MR. ZIP. It's not often that you encounter an M-R-Z pattern in the grid, so that was surprising. Not only that, the Zs of both words are side-by-side, and are incorporated in the crossing word EMBEZZLE, with its superbly understated clue [Misappropriate].
It looks like there's an automotive mini-theme, too. [Drag race participant]? Well, that'd be HOT ROD. With all the money that goes into customizing some of these cars (which their owners generally don't wish to become REPOS [Seized vehicles]), one can only hope that it's outfitted with a working TAIL LIGHT [Something on the back of a Bronco?]. Or two... And that whether it's for a drag race or for more leisurely, less aggressive driving, the owner remembers to GAS UP [Get ready for a road trip]. Because nuthin' [Puts the brakes on]/CURBS one's ability to get up and go like an empty gas tank.
Other peppy fill/clues (almost all noteworthy for the attitude they convey):
• BIG CHEESE [Top dog];
• HEADCASE [Piece of work] (I have a special fondness for this combo...);
• HOOEY [Mumbo jumbo] and INANE [Goofy]—which are side-by-side in the grid;
• CAJUN [Zydeco player] and PROXY [Shareholder's substitute], for their contributions to the high-scorin' Scrabble letters; and
• "OH, MAN!" ["Give me a break!"]. This is but one way to clue it and is a good reminder of the power of inflection. Most of us have probably uttered the phrase or heard someone else use it to convey a reaction meaning anything from "I'm so sorry" to "That is fantastic—wow" or the exasperation in today's example. All of which supports the theory that it's not what ya say, but how ya say it!
Don Gagliardo's Los Angeles Times crossword
One downside of solving in Across Lite is that when there's a really long clue, you have to resize the window in order to read the whole clue. (That "mouse over it and the clue pops up" feature is Windows-only.) So while I did this puzzle last night, I hadn't grasped the full SHOEBOX oomph—not only are the four long answers phrases that end with categories of shoe, but the letters in SHOE are spelled out counterclockwise in four different rings/boxes in the corners of the grid, each time with the E in the very corner. This is a big SHOEBOX indeed, having room for pairs of CLOGS, HEELS, PUMPS, and FLATS:
• SINK CLOGS are [Kitchen backups]. Not wild about the phrase SINK CLOGS, as it's the sink's drain that is clogged.
• The [North Carolina team] are the TARHEELS.
• [Octane rating sites] are GAS PUMPS.
• The SALT FLATS are the [Bonneville Speedway feature].
So, it's the SHOE boxes that account for the "meh" fill in the grid. Both EONS and EOS, ESSO and ESSE, OTHO and SHO, OTOE and ESTES—those wouldn't be there if they weren't facilitating the four-square corners.
There's good fill in here, too. My favorites are CORN CHEX (which I should add to my shopping list!), a [General Mills cereal], and the UTNE READER, an [Eclectic bimonthly reader]. Nice to see the magazine in its entirety rather than just a bland clue for UTNE alone.
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "Starting Something"
If you want to be starting something, you're spoiling for a fight. The theme entries are four famous people whose names begin with synonyms for "fight":
• There's a ROW in ROWAN ATKINSON, the ["Mr. Bean" portrayer].
• WARREN BEATTY, who [won an Oscar for playing Bugsy Siegel] but could not pull off playing Mr. Bean, begins with WAR.
• She was billed as Tiffani-Amber Thiessen when she was on Saved by the Bell but dropped the Amber by the time she was on Beverly Hills, 90210. So she's TIFFANI THIESSEN, and that starts with a TIFF.
• BOUTROS-GHALI is the last name of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, so this theme entry is not structurally consistent with the other theme entries. But both his first and last names begin with BOUT. (He's the [U.N. Secretary General succeeded by Annan].)
• FIGHTING WORDS at 54A ties everything together, and "fighting words" is a colorful phrase so it's an asset to the theme to be in the grid rather than the title field.
Selected clues:
• ["For reals!"] clues "NO LIE!"
• [Bratislavan currency] is nothing more exotic than the EURO.
• [Take care of one's canines?] clues FLOSS. This is about human teeth, not dogs and their teeth.
• [Moe who recorded Woody Guthrie and others] is Moe ASCH. Usually the crossword ASCH is novelist Sholem Asch.
• [Popular subway time-killers] are PSPS, or PlayStation Portable handheld game players.
• RSVP is clued as [Let people know if you're coming to their wedding], and [Plays at a wedding] clues the verb DJS. Can you guess that Ben Tausig's wedding is coming up soon? Did you RSVP already? What's that? You didn't get an invitation either? Well, let's all show up and surprise him.
• A bank [Balance problem?] is an OVERDRAFT.
• [Emulate Angelina Jolie and Madonna] clues ADOPT.
• [Put up a minor obstacle?] means "put up an obstacle to minors" here—the bouncer or bartender who iDED the kid kept her out of the bar.
October 16, 2009
Saturday, 10/17/09
Newsday 6:41
NYT 6:32
LAT 2:51
CS untimed
Chuck Deodene's New York Times crossword
Is it just me, or does this crossword have more than the usual allotment of multi-word answers? Among the more noteworthy (i.e., not often seen in the grid) phrases are these:
• 1A. THANKS TO is equivalent to [Through the efforts of]. 15A: AS THOUGH ([Like]) has a similar vibe.
• 14A. The SOVIET ERA was the [Sputnik launch time].
• 17A. If you TOOK NOTES, you [Didn't just rely on memory].
• 58A. I'm not sure how savory or un- RENT A ROOM ([Get some quick lodging]) is as a crossword entry. The exclamation "GET A ROOM!" feels more familiar to me.
• 63A. I wonder if there's anyone named Tatt, Leon. TATTLE ON means [Rat out].
• 11D. And what about GAVE HOPE? Is it a solid phrase or merely verb + noun? It's clued with [Offered a way out].
• 13D. A key word in the clue was in the L.A. Times puzzle the other day. RED ALERT is a [Klaxon-sounding occasion]. "What's the occasion?" "Oh, you know. We're on RED ALERT."
• 32D. DEAR SIRS is clued as a [Fusty greeting]. Clue = awesomeness.
• 36D. I like TAX DODGE, or [Bit of trickery on the schedule].
Favorite clues and answers:
• 40A. [It may have clawed feet] clues an old (or new and expensive) BATHTUB. My first post-college apartment had an old claw-foot tub. Man, was that tub deep.
• The snowdrift mislead misled me for a bit: 29A is ROVE, or [Drift], but 61A is a SNOW FENCE, or [Guard against drifting].
• 1D. T-STORM is a [Brief weather phenomenon?] in that it's a brief name for a weather occurrence.
• 2D. I like HOODIE, but I'm not sure it's most accurately described as a [Hip-hop top]. Fashion mavens and hip-hop aficionados, what say you?
• 31D. Edward ALBEE is clued by way of a quote: [He said "If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic"]. Isn't that a tad dramatic?
• 34D. I don't know the first thing about PINOCHLE, but the [Double-decker?] clue had me thinking of buses, sandwiches, and punches but not card games.
• 41D. TRIDENT is a [Fishing weapon], and also the pencil attachment of choice for Crossword Fiends everywhere.
• 47D. YEOMEN are clued as [Tower of London figures]. The Tower of London was one of the highlights of my family vacation in 2007.
And now, how about a tough clue roundup?
• 9A. SUGAR is [Crystals used for dishes]. I ate a small spoonful of sugar today to get rid of my hiccups. It was yummy. And yet I still needed a lot of crossings to tease out this answer.
• 21A. Amtrak's ACELA train is a [Track speedster beginning in 2000]. Yes, I thought it referred to sprinters at first.
• 23A, 25A. With the ENT in place, I confidently filled in VENTRAL for [Of the seafloor]. I don't know why. The answer is BENTHIC, which ought to be an adjective for things relating to philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Speaking of things down yonder, HEL is a Norse [Underworld goddess]. And speaking of the sea, 34A: [Unlike seawater] clues POTABLE.
• 44A. [Minute] can mean "small," but BITSY without an "itsy" is not a word I'd ever use.
• 56A, 56D. If you don't know the Czech city BRNO ([Moravian capital]) or the [Belgian balladeer] Jacques BREL, you could be excused for thinking that B should be a vowel. "Moravian" doesn't shout "place with a dearth of vowels," does it? AREL, ARNO? EREL, ERNO? IREL, IRNO? OREL, ORNO? UREL, URNO? Er, no.
• 12D. [What pupils are separated by] is their AGE LEVEL, to a degree.
• 29D. I don't recall seeing this etymology before. RABBI means [Literally, "my master"]. I wasn't thinking Hebrew at all, and for a while my GUN BELT was a GUN ROOM, so I was wondering about, say, BARBI. Then I pondered Barbie dolls and RAMBO.
• 38D. [Lumps] are NUBS. "Nub" is not a word I use much.
I hear some people felt yesterday's Karen Tracey puzzle was Saturday-hard. Is this one harder? I thought both crosswords landed squarely in the desired difficulty zones for their respective days.
Updated Saturday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Good Old What's-His-Name"—Janie's review
•17A. GUY LOMBARDO [Bandleader associated with New Year's Eve]. Any of you younger solvers ever heard of him? He was a legend (and a veritable institution) in his day, but died in 1977. What a guy!
•27A. BUDDY HACKETT [Comedian who got his start in the borscht belt]. The name Leonard Hacker just wasn't gonna, um, hack it—now was it, ol' buddy, ol'pal?
•43A. BUSTER KEATON [Actor nicknamed the "Great Stone Face"]. If a deeply troubled man, a brilliant comic as well—but decidedly of the deadpan variety. Wanna make somethin' of it, buster?
•57A. JOE DIMAGGIO ["The Yankee Clipper"]. Did you know that Joltin' Joe was from San Francisco? I didn't. I'd always assumed he was New York born and bred. But no. In so many ways this extraordinary athlete was, at heart, always a "regular Joe."
Taking off from that sports-related place (and going back to my "masculine bias" statement), look how much more sports fill Randy gives us:
•END [Tom Brady target]. Brady is a quarterback and it seems that in that position he gets to know the opposing team's tight end all too well. Ditto the wide receiver—who used to be called the split end.
•[Causes of overtimes] TIES.
•[Cowboys or Indians] TEAMS.
•["Kill the ump!"] "BOO!"
•LEFT JAB [Right hook set up].
•And yes, they're both co-ed these days, but I'm going to include (the side-by-side in the grid) PRINCETON [Ivy League School] and OHIO STATE [Big Ten School] in this grouping because they both have serious athletic programs and tend to be very "rah-rah."
Other fill in the "Mars" column would include HERO/[Medal of Honor recipient], Zubin MEHTA, Franz Joseph HAYDN, EDD Byrnes, DAN Brown, Daniel BOONE, Captain AHAB, Fibber MCGEE—and even SHAFT/[Blaxploitation film of 1971].
With the exception of ALTOS [Choir voices], there's even a male bent to the many musical references:
• MEHTA [Conductor Zubin].
• HAYDN [Composer call the "Father of the Symphony"].
• BACH ["Brandenburg Concertos" composer].
• [Bruce Hornsby's instrument] PIANO.
"Venus" entries include TERI [Hatcher of "Desperate Housewives"], ["Gidget" actress Sandra] DEE, Yoko ONO ["Double Fantasy" performer] (how's that for a trio?!) and, what's this? [Something burned in the '60s]: BRA!
In fact, I like that last combo quite a bit. The clue is strong. So is [Makeup artist?] for LIAR. Hmmm. That one could go in either column. These days, so could RABBI [Yeshiva graduate, often].
I wouldn't say I literally [Revere] this puzzle, but I sure do ADMIRE it highly. With (even more) solid fill the likes of TRASH CANS (wonderfully clued as [They're full of garbage]), LET US PRAY, AMOROUS, GOES APE (though we saw this on Tuesday in Paula's puzzle...), and even STOMACH (clued as [Gut]—and now I'm thinkin' of all those out of shape athletes...)—I ask you, what's not to like?!
Barry Silk's Los Angeles Times crossword
Good news! In a few more weeks, the late-week LAT puzzles will stop being so ridiculously easy. The powers that be have finally acknowledged that maybe it's OK for a Friday or Saturday puzzle to reach beyond Tuesday difficulty. I'm not sure how far up the scale it'll go, but we'll see in November. In the meantime, this puppy clocked in as a Tuesday for me.
Here's an edited portion of my L.A. Crossword Confidential post:
First up is a term I don't know at all, but that is probably familiar to geologists: QUAKE LAKE, or 15A: [Basin that can result from a seismic landslide]. It's related to the broader category of landslide dams, apparently, and there's a Quake Lake in Montana and a quake lake in Sichuan, China, that formed after the 2008 earthquake. Did you folks know this term?
Favorite answers? Right here:
• 1A: Spears on the table (ASPARAGUS). My first thought was BRITNEY. I don't care for asparagus, so I certainly do not have any recipes for it. I do, however, enjoy the science of asparagus.
• It's a Woodstock criss-cross party! JANIS and JIMI are 10A: [Joplin at Woodstock] and 10D: [Hendrix at Woodstock].
• Nobody gets excited by PETER I or OTTO I in the fill. But LOUIS XIV looks awesome there, doesn't he? (20A: European ruler for 72 years). Speaking of Louis, have you seen this clip of comedian Louis CK on Conan O'Brien's show? It's hilarious. Writer Dean Olsher posted that clip to his Facebook page—from a plane with wireless internet access.
• 39A: It creates an adjustable loop (SLIP KNOT). Yeah, you don't often see a PKN smack dab in the middle of an answer.
• When I was a teenage existentialist, I was 11D: Blown away (AWESTRUCK) by 12D: 1944 Sartre play (NO EXIT).
• 21D: Ship in 1898 news (U.S.S. MAINE), I like multi-word entries and those with unexpected letter combos. SSM looks wrong but it's right.
• 23D: Lunchbox alternative (PAPER BAG). I don't like this answer so much as the way it evokes the idiom "can't punch his way out of a paper bag." Though I never use "punch"—how about "She can't solve her way out of a paper bag"?
I'm never a fan of the "smush together two items in a series and call it a crossword entry" thing. 48A: [Notes after fa] clues SO LA. Boo! It's not even holding together a particularly cool section of the grid. I'd feel warmer to it if it facilitated amazing entries in its neighborhood, but TOILSOME and ENDORSED don't do much for me.
Merle Baker's Newsday "Saturday Stumper"
(PDF solution here.)
Let's start with the big "Huh?" clues:
• 24A. [A and B, in C] clues LATI. Is this LA, TI, as in "do re mi fa sol la ti do"? If you must have one of these icky two-notes-smushed-together entries (see a few paragraphs above), you really want to use a straightforward clue. Save the more mysterious clues for more solid entries so solvers don't feel ripped off or just plain mystified.
• 46A. DIMITY is a [Cotton fabric]. More specifically, "a hard-wearing, sheer cotton fabric woven with raised stripes or checks." I have never encountered this word. They don't tend to sprinkle "dimity" in clothing catalogs, do they?
• 12D. Did you know there's such a thing as a TREE TOAD? I'd have thought the [Foam-nest builder] would be some sort of wasp or beetle.
• 37D. VERONA is the [Home of Valentine and Proteus]. These are the Two Gentlemen of Verona. I never knew the characters' names.
Good stuff:
• 13D. HEX SIGNS are [Pennsylvania folk art].
• 22A. BEANIE BABIES are a [Yard-sale staple], all right.
• 5A. SACKCLOTH is a [Symbol of remorse]. Cool CKCL pile-up in the middle.
Iffy stuff:
• 33A. MISADDS is [Gets the wrong number, maybe]. Raise your hand if you've ever used this word. Anyone? Anyone?
• Weird plurals—38D: [Balm ingredients] are ALOES. Just how many ALOES are included in the typical balm? 35D: [Peculiar talk] clues LINGOES.
• 38A. EPT is clued as [Able, nonstandardly].
Answers I'd like to swap:
• 26A and 28A, [Multi-Grammy rap star] and [Patron saint of girls], are NELLY and AGNES.
October 05, 2009
Tuesday, 10/6/09
Jonesin 4:55
NYT 3:05
LAT 2:44
CS untimed
Matt Ginsberg's New York Times crossword
Matt's theme invites a bunch of oddballs to the party. The theme entries are words that are the "only common word in the English language with the consecutive letters ___." MPG is in 18A: CAMPGROUND. ADQ is in 28A: HEADQUARTERS. 48A: THANKSGIVING contains KSG. 62A: BLITZKRIEG, as in the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop,", has that unusual ZKR cluster. I have known how to spell 2D: RASPBERRY for decades, but I still have trouble typing the P in that SPB sandwich. And NKC is in 35D: CRANKCASE. Kinda weird to have clues that give you three of the letters in the answer but no definition of the word, isn't it? Twenty-five bonus points for freshness.
This was kinda hard for a Tuesday puzzle, if you ask me and Rex Parker. (But not if you ask assorted people who whizzed through this crossword in their standard Tuesday times.) Not only are the theme clues not the usual, but there's some tougher fill. 3D: [Burned ceremonially] is IMMOLATED? Ouch. Generally what's IMMOLATED is rather horrifying to burn—if you're lucky it's merely animal sacrifice and not human. Not a Tuesday vocabulary word, and also rather gruesome. If you ask Joon, IRED (37D: [Really ticked]) is also gruesome crossword fill, what with ire not being a verb. I still think Lash LARUE is one of those outdated celebs who's pretty much known these days only among those who do too many crosswords, but I like the 66A clue: [Cowboy star Lash, who taught Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip]. I also appreciate the word DETRITUS, or 38D: [Rubble, e.g.].
I wonder how many other of these outlier words Matt had on his list of possibilities for the theme.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Four in a Row"
I got sidetracked when I filled in some of the Down answers. REX MORGAN, M.D. and ORANGES? Hmm, will other Down answers be, I dunno, JIMMIED and R&B SINGERS? Is the theme "four crossword bloggers in a row"? In a word, no. The theme entries, which run Across, contain 4-letter alphabetic runs. GYMNOPHOBIA, GENETIC DEFECT, GENDER STUDIES, and DEATH CAB CDS all contain 4 consecutive letters. I didn't know gymnophobia was a word; Tobias Fünke of Arrested Development, a "never-nude," suffered from that phobia, the fear of nudity. Yes, the root words of gymnasium are "exercise naked," and though I am not a gymnophobe, that's a horrifying idea. My dad's high-school gym class had to swim nude. Can you imagine??
Favorite clue: [Product of Jordan?] is the HANES underwear endorsed by Michael Jordan.
Mike Peluso's Los Angeles Times crossword
How many verbs can you conjugate in LATIN (31A: [Classic language, and with 61-Across, hint to the puzzle theme found at the starts of 20-, 37- and 57-Across]/ 61A is LOVE ([Cherish]), and I can conjugate that Latin verb for the first, second, and third person singular, thanks to crosswordese. How often have we seen AMO, AMAS, or AMAT? I've never seen the plural forms, but the estimable Urban Dictionary tells me the series continues amamus, amatis, amant (this is one of the few Urban Dictionary pages without juvenile obscenity or crassness).
The long theme entries begin with the letters in AMO, AMAS, and AMAT, but not with those words per se. 20A: AMONG THE ENEMY is a [2005 Margaret Peterson Haddix children's thriller] I've never heard of. 37A: A MASS A FORTUNE is clued with [Accumulate wealth]. And 57A: [Non-remunerative athletics] are AMATEUR SPORTS.
My favorite clue is 54D: [Seriously humid] for MUGGY. That's right, people: mugginess is no laughing matter. It maketh Orange cranky. Luckily, Chicago's MUGGY days are over for the year. Unfortunately, it's been unseasonably chilly of late. Cluing 46D: SLALOM as a [Sinuous ski race] makes it sound kinda hot, doesn't it? Slinky and curvy? 47D is LEMONY, or [Tart, as a citrus drink]; my son just started reading the first of the Lemony Snicket books. Between that series and the Hardy Boys mysteries, he should be set for months. I'm also partial to that 23A: [1958 #1 hit sung in Italian], not because of the song "VOLARE" but because the car I learned to drive in was a forest green Plymouth Volare station wagon.
Updated Tuesday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Quiet!"—Janie's review
Gotta tell ya—for a "quiet" puzzle, this one packs quite a punch. Not only does it have a "before and after" thing going, but as 63A (the last of the theme-clues) tells us, there's something about the "before" component in the three other theme-entries that ties in to this last theme-entry and relates to a key word in the fill there. The clue in question is the sassy ["Shut yer yapper!" (and a hint to 17-, 28-, and 47-across)]; the title-related fill: "PUT A LID ON IT!"; the "key word": lid. The other theme entries:
I love how Randy has braided together the various strands of this theme. There's both a complexity and a neatness to it that's very appealing.
Appealing, too, is much of the non-theme puzzle complement. We get [Two of a kind], a PAIR of "pod" clues at 1- and 2D, for instance: [Pod inhabitant] and [Pod inhabitants] for ORCA and PEAS. Here's a little clip of a pod of orca whales. We also get a pair of "golden age of the silver screen" types in (actor) Mary ASTOR [...of "The Maltese Falcon"] and (gossip columnist) HEDDA [Hopper of Hollywood].
Sports, anyone? There's André AGASSI [Winner of a career Grand Slam in tennis], a HIKER [Appalachian Trail user], the NFL [Org. of Falcons and Eagles] and OTTO Graham [Hall of Fame quarterback...]. If you [Go downhill], you may SLED to do so. You may also SKI if you [Compete in the Nordic combined] (or ski-jump to be more accurate, which looks an awful lot like flying downhill). How does Sergey Bubka negotiate tall fences? He POLE VAULTS. Okay, he's retired, but he still holds the world record. Great misdirect clue here: [Attempts to pass the bar?] has nothing to do with the legal system.
There's more misdirection with [Quit surfing?], which has nothing to do with water sports and all to do with computer use, LOG OFF; [Farm team], which has nothing to do with baseball and is all about OXEN; and [Court affairs] which this time is about the legal system's [TRIALS] and has nothing to do with basketball. Turnabout is fair play after all.
OMG, nearly forgot the best of the "this-is-not-a-sports-clue" clues—the eye-widening, laugh-inducing [Something taken before swinging?] for, yes... VIAGRA.
Before closing, and while I'm rhapsodizing, let me not forget to mention the elegant RHAPSODIZE [Wax lyrical].
And that's a wrap for today!
September 24, 2009
Friday, 9/25/09
NYT 6:23
LAT 2:47
CS untimed
BEQ 8:08
CHE—9/18 puzzle available here, but I'm not blogging it
WSJ 7:52
Robert Doll's New York Times crossword
I feel slightly like I've been run over by a bus—you know how you feel when a cold first settles in, and the sinus pressure and overriding malaise compete for attention? Let's see how much of this 70-worder I can chat about before the enticing arms of Morpheus beckon me.
Updated Friday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "The French Connection"—Janie's review
We know the formula for this theme very well: the first word of the well-known theme-phrase can follow a word hinted at or spelled out in the title to create another well-known phrase. In this case, it's that word French that makes the connection happen. I know—you were thinking this would be a puzzle related to William Friedkin's 1971 film. But no. The closest this puzzle gets to that would be the clue at 7D [Bong producers]. But the correct fill there is GONGS and not a reference to the head-shop paraphernalia you can see in the link... Let's take a look at the lively phrases and images Randy has given us, both before and after:
The liveliness of the theme fill finds a complement in much of the non-theme fill as well. I especially liked the colloquial clue/phrase pairs: ["Hear! Hear!"]/"I AGREE!" and the snarky (also [Impertinent] / FORWARD) ["Shut yer yapper!"]/"ZIP IT!" This is something you never want to say to the [Head honcho]/MR. BIG. Unless you're hoping he DEMOTES you.
I liked seeing ASTA clued as [Hammett hound]. So often that pooch is clued in connection with either The Thin Man or Nick and Nora Charles—and I think we forget that that book and those characters were the creations of the hard-drinking master of the noir-genre detective story, Dashiell Hammett. I also liked seeing O'NEAL [Ryan of "Peyton Place"] (that would be the '60s television series...] crossing NEIL [Rocker Young] (who's been rocking since the '60s...).
Finally, my two fave combos, both a tad on the, uh, "randy" side. One would be [Moon shot?] for RUMP; the other (this is the best), [Secret target?] for ARMPIT. ["Good going!"] "NICE!"
The decongestant is doing nothing for Orange's sinus discomfort, so the remainder of this post will be brief.
Kurt Mueller's Los Angeles Times crossword
My eye just read 57A: SNEAK INTO as SNEAK KIN INTO, which is what's happened to the theme entries. [Gear up for Halloween?] clues PRIME THE PUMPKIN, building on "prime the pump." "Bump on a log" + KIN = BUMPKIN ON A LOG, or [Yokel resting in the woods?]. [Steals the dinner cloth from Garfield's lap?] clues TAKES A CAT NAPKIN ("takes a catnap"). Hmm. Now, there's no underlying reason to insert KIN into these phrases, the KINs appear at the end twice but in the middle the third time (inconsistent structure), and the NAPKIN one seems too surreal. Is Garfield depicted as having a napkin on his lap? Cats don't have laps.
Dan Fisher's Wall Street Journal crossword, "There's an App for That"
Each theme entry is made up of APP + a familiar phrase, yielding something entirely different. Favorite examples: 82A: [What a mattress salesman might do?] is APPROACH MOTELS, and the juxtaposition of mattresses and roach motels is suitably creepy. 33A: APPROVING EYE is [Favorable look?], reworking "roving eye."
I had no idea that JADE was a synonym for [Harlot]. Y'know, with JADE also being a green gemstone and a verb meaning "to wear out, as by overuse," why on earth go with archaic sexist words? Pfft. Really, women don't need extra reminders of sexism
I'm deducting a couple points for ENDS ([They may be loose or tight]—good clue) appearing in the same puzzle as theme entry APPEND TABLES, based on "end tables"...although the theme answer has APPEND and not END, I know it's in there.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Barbershop Quartet" (19x19)
The theme is barbershop-related puns on song titles. The songs are split into two or three entries apiece, so there's a lot of hopping around the grid to assemble the titles. My favorite's GOD SHAVE / THE QUEEN, or [Barber's song about taking care of Elizabeth's mustache?]. Next favorite is the [Barber's song about nothing but passion for his work?], TOTALLY CLIPS / OF THE HEART. Why? Because of these videos. Always loathed the song, but these videos bring joy:
And this one, for which embedding is disabled—a Welsh men's choir, Only Men Aloud, singing the song over a Lego version of the video.
The other theme songs are HAIR THERE AND / EVERYWHERE and DAMN, I WISH I / WAS / YOUR LATHER.
September 14, 2009
Tuesday, 9/15/09
Jonesin' 3:54
NYT 3:18
LAT 3:03
CS untimed
Fran and Lou Sabin's New York Times crossword
Lou Sabin has been contributing crosswords to the NYT since 1950, so he's closing in on the 60-year mark as a Times constructor. He and his wife Fran cooked up a theme featuring THINGS WITH WINGS (38A: [What the answers to all the asterisked clues are]). Those winged things are:
It's mildly distracting that there's an ORIOLE'S NEST ([Spherical home in a tree]) running alongside the RAF theme entry, what with orioles having wings. And then opposite the ORIOLE'S NEST are some ENLISTED MEN ([Grunts]), who put me in mind of the RAF. These days, some of those grunts are enlisted women, no?
Old-time nostalgia clue for the day: 49D: [Old "You press the button, we do the rest" sloganeer] is KODAK, and that slogan was created in 1888. High-school nostalgia moment for me: 47A: ["To your health!"] clues PROSIT, the German toast. We learned German drinking songs in high school: Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit.
I'll leave it there and try to blog another puzzle or two tonight.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "Dietary Restrictions"—available now via Google Groups
The four 15-letter theme entries should really be longer, but Matt has lopped off the endings of these foods and reclued them accordingly:
Among the livelier or more unusual fill are these:
Updated Tuesday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Flat Broke"—Janie's review
Take the word flat, and break it up into two unequal parts: fla and t. How many phrases are bookended with this particular combination? OneLook.com notes some: 344, in fact. How many—by length and quality—are puzzle-worthy? "Ay, there's the rub." I'm happy to say that Randy has found four prime candidates:
There are some fine clue/fill combos that contribute to this puzzle's lively feel, so let's take a look at:Never've I chased the honey-bee
Who carelessly cajoled me.
Somebody else just as sweet as he
Cheered me and consoled me...
There are also some brow-raisers: DUANE [Chapman of "Dog the Bounty Hunter"], who is someone I've never heard of (nor any of his work); early 20th century ball player TRIS [Speaker of Cooperstown], who is someone I've encountered only in the puzzles but don't know in a more organic (or memorable...) way (not atypical of me 'n' sports figures, no matter what their contribution to the game); and TEE OFF ON for [Chew out]. When you're angry with someone, you're teed off at him/her. But until today, I'd never heard the expression tee off on, as in "I was so angry I really had to tee off on him." Are any of you familiar with this phrase? Is it maybe a regional thang?
I sure never heard of TEE OFF ON, but there it is in the Mac's Oxford American dictionary widget with an "informal" tag. One of the usage examples is "He will tee off on conservative politicians," and the other is "Chang teed off on his opponent's serve." With a definition of "sharply attack someone or something," I don't quite see that making sense in the second example.
Donna Levin's Los Angeles Times crossword
LOST IN SPACE premiered on this date in 1965, which was 44 years ago and not your usual big round number for an anniversary puzzle. Robby the Robot (that's right, yes? I never watched the show and tried to avert my eyes from the movie remake when it was on cable) was wont to say "Danger, Will Robinson!"—which feeds into the other three theme answers. DANGER MOUSE is a [Toon rodent who's a secret British agent]. I get this rodent mixed up with Modest Mouse, given my near-total lack of familiarity with both of 'em. WILL YOU MARRY ME at first made this look like a proposal puzzle, but the inclusion of I TOLD YOU SO and IN REBUTTAL elsewhere in the puzzle make that seem unlikely. It's clued as [Suitor's proposal]. The third robot word begins ROBINSON CRUSOE, a [Shipwrecked literary hero].
NIHIL, or [Nothing, in Latin], seems a little high-end for a Tuesday puzzle. [Mike Nichols's comedy partner] is not his wife, news anchor Diane Sawyer, but ELAINE MAY. Two German things today: BUND is a [1930s-'40s German-American political group], and KOLN (Köln, really) is the [German name for Cologne], the city. In the U.S., a trailer park is most often a community with smaller prefab homes and not where the RV'ER hangs out. I don't feel [Trailer park resident, for short] aptly describes RVers, who tend to drive their homes across the country, not live in stationary trailer homes.
September 04, 2009
Saturday, 9/5/09
NYT 4:29 the second time around, untimed the first time
LAT untimed, but it fell smoothly
Newsday untimed, with some snarls
CS untimed (J)
Mike Nothnagel's New York Times crossword
Mike's puzzle was originally the finals puzzle at the Lollapuzzoola tournament a couple weeks ago. I test-solved it aboard an airplane, untimed because my only watch is my cell phone and phones must be turned off during flight. Brian Cimmet, the cohost of Lollapuzzoola, was looking for a tough finals puzzle, so I suggested a few spots that might need toughening up. Aw, I'm disappointed that the genus and species of brine shrimp (Artemia salina) didn't make it into the SEA MONKEY clue, per my suggestion. (15D: [Pet for which you can buy an Aqua-Leash] is harder than the original, at least.) I haven't compared the Lolla final version with the NYT version, so I don't know if there were (m)any changes.
I wouldn't have used the "play against the clock" option on the applet if I'd remembered that the puzzle was one I'd seen before, but the margaritas, they kept me from remembering. Ah, well. Still, Mike's fill and clues were worth another go-round.
Favorite clues and answers:
Updated Saturday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Tuckered Out"—Janie's review
Randy may complain of fatigue, and even though the first words of each of the three theme-phrases begin with a synonym for that condition—really, to judge from the fill today, there's little evidence of it at all. Take a look:
Lotta names in the mix today. The gents are: (H.) ROSS Perot, Nicola TESLA, RON Howard, Don IMUS, PETER Ueberroth, Ernest or Julio GALLO and Patrick EWING; the ladies: EDIE Falco, ANNE Hathaway, AMY Adams and ["Cheers" barmaid], the snarky and super CARLA Tortelli.
Other strong fill would include: RANCOR; TAPIRS, those unusual-looking [South American mammals] (that are darned cute in the baby-stage); EXUDE and OXIDE; CURFEW and CUT MAN [Figure in a boxing ring]. That last one conjures up Clint Eastwood ("the best cut man in the business"), Morgan Freeman and Hillary Swank in the rip-yer-heart-out Million Dollar Baby.
Places where I needed the crosses to keep me on track bring me back to our friend AXIOM, where my first thought was adage; [Stratagem]—that's plan, right? Nupe, more like the wily WILE; [Copies] are CLONES today and not mimics; and those [..."knock-knock" jokes]? They're PUNNY, not corny. (Well, they're corny, too—but that's another story!)
Doug Peterson's Los Angeles Times crossword
Fun puzzle, but definitely on the easy side for a Saturday. The morning is racing on without me, so let me do a quick copy-and-paste excerpt from L.A. Crossword Confidential with the crossword's highlights:
Newsday "Saturday Stumper" by "Anna Stiga," aka Stan Newman
(PDF solution here.)
If you like to compare your solving times with mine, boy, you're fresh out of luck today. Maybe tomorrow!
The last corner I was able to work through was the northwest one. The three toughest clues for me in that quadrant were [Powerless people of fiction] for MUGGLES, the non-wizard people in the Harry Potter universe); [Knighted actor] Peter USTINOV, who does not have a very British Isles surname, so he was a surprise there; and [Name meaning "I am faithful"], which brought people name FIDEL to mind but not dog name FIDO, the answer.
The upper right corner is topped by QADHAFI, the [African Union chairman elected in 2009], the guy whose name can be transliterated in about 10 different spellings. He's above "YA THINK?"—a [Jocular "Really?"]. Moving towards the puzzle's midsection, we hit BOO BIRD, or [No fan of the home team]. Who uses that term?
Dropping down to the lower left, LEN is a [Spy novelist's prename]. Len...Len...Deighton? Yeah, that's the guy. I started with IAN Fleming. I didn't know that it was the YEW TREE that was [Wordsworth's "pride of Lorton Vale"]. Oak, elm, ash...so many trees to choose from.
In the final quadrant, I started with FATCATS instead of TOMCATS for [Garfield et al.]. [Like moles] uses the two-syllable mole, the MEXICAN sauce made with chocolate. P.W. BOTHA, that unsavory [ANC opponent] who ruled South Africa as a staunch proponent of apartheid, balances QADHAFI's North Africa geographically.
August 25, 2009
Wednesday, 8/26/09
Onion 5:08
NYT 3:26
LAT 3:15ish?
CS 9:41 (J—paper)
BEQ 3:21 (Downs only)
What's that date atop this post? Why, it's August 26, and you know what that means: It's Will Shortz's birthday! To celebrate, Andrea Carla Michaels crafted a fun crossword just for the occasion. You can download it in Across Lite or PDF form at the Crossword Fiend forum. Happy birthday, Will!
Gary Cee's New York Times crossword
This theme doesn't quite please me. Each theme entry is something that's requested with a "please" after it, but the first one seems out of place with the others:
Five quick hits (each of 'em a TWOFER, or [Get-one-free deal]:
Updated Wednesday morning:
Randall J. Hartman's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Send a Letter to the Governor"—Janie's review
Ooh, we've got another really strong (well-conceived, well-made and lively) puzzle again today. Randy has taken the capital cities of three states and added a single letter to each, yielding new phrases of the humorous / amusing variety. The final theme-phrase at 64A pulls it all together: CAPITAL GAIN [Profit from a bond sale (and a hint to 17-, 27-, and 47-Across]. With the addition of an:
This is good stuff all. What else is good stuff? For starters, there's some clever cluing:
I'm fond of the colloquial phrases we find, too: the emphatic ["Yes] SIRREE [, Bob!"], the surprised (and slightly Brit) ["By] JOVE [!"] and the tentative "I'M NOT SURE" ["Search me"]. First fill on that last one was I DON'T KNOW. But not for long. Also started to take myself off the right track entering DE VITO for AIELLO [Danny of "Do the Right Thing"], but only got as far as the "DE," had a good laugh, then filled in the correct name. Not to be a SORE LOSER [Poor sport], but this penchant of mine to follow the wrong trail gives me DÉJÀ VU all over again. So to speak...
Dan Naddor's Los Angeles Times crossword
Cribbed from my L.A. Crossword Confidential post, where there's more:
THEME: "Court Business"—The middle entry, 33A, is both a verb phrase and a noun phrase; it's the noun that gets riffed on for the ends of the theme answers:
Unfortunate duplication I hadn't noticed last night: Paul LE MAT's first name is in his clue, and longtime L.A. Times editorial cartoonist PAUL CONRAD is in the grid. It's Paul Day! If your name is Paul, pick up an extra treat for yourself today.
Brendan Quigley's blog crossword, "Improper Puzzle"
Well, his blog post's title referenced "downs only solving" and the difficulty label was "easy," so I slid the Across/Down clues divider in Across Lite way up to the top, avoided looking at the highlighted clue atop the puzzle, and solved this puppy using only the Down clues. Between the easy cluing, the not-hard-to-get theme, and only one Across answer that wasn't 100% plausible, this was a perfect puzzle for skipping the Across clues. My only semi-trouble spot was not being 100% sure that [Celebrity chef Matsuhisa, or his restaurant] was NOBU given a TO*AT crossing at the B. The Across clue was totally clear, though: [Go ___ for (defend)].
Janie's been livening up her CrosSynergy solves by doing some of them with only the Down clues. If you're one of those people who tends to skip the Monday through Wednesday puzzles because they're not challenging enough (but you wouldn't mind spending more time on crosswords), consider working the Downs only for extra challenge. I do that with many of the standard crosswords in Games and World of Puzzles.
Matt Gaffney's Onion A.V. Club crossword
Matt drew his inspiration from the phrase "full of shit": Each theme entry has an embedded SHIT split across two or three words, and that hinted-at phrase means COMPLETELY LYING, or [Just making things up, or a synonym for a three-word phrase describing this puzzle's theme entries]. We've got WAVES HI TO, LET'S HIT THE ROAD, an ENGLISH-ITALIAN dictionary, and a SUSHI TRAY.
Among the tougher clues, or the more clever ones:
